We hope your holidays have been fantastic!  We apologize for taking a little break but if you know us well, you know that our families come first.  This time of year there are so many opportunities to have family time that we tend to focus there, rather than on the blog.  Thanks for understanding!

I wanted to share a quick New Year’s tradition idea.  In our family we measure each child every year.  We measure their height, weight, bicep, & waist size.  It is fun to see how they grow over the years.  I usually post these on my blog with a photo from that year.  (We actually mark their height on a wall in our pantry also so they can see how much they grew from the year before.)  I make my blog into my scrapbook so if you don’t blog you may want to put this in your scrapbook.  If you don’t do either, it might be fun to keep it in a file with their name on it.  It is fun to see how much they change and grow each year.   My boys love it when their biceps get bigger and they look more grown up.   This tradition is a fun start to a new year.  We also include our new years resolutions so we can check them next year and see how we did.  I read on another blog about a family that makes news years posters with their resolutions so they can put them up and be reminded of them.  Not a bad idea especially if your kid’s new years resolutions are ‘listen to mom and dad’ and ‘do my best in everything’.  Aren’t those fabulous resolutions?  It would be great to have a constant reminder!

It is nice to have a fresh new start with a brand new year!  We are getting back into the swing of things at My Heart & Home.  We will begin posting our steps soon and we will continue with our traditions, recipes and FHE ideas.  Please be patient with us as we get things going again.  Thanks so much!

Since today is an organizing tip.  I wanted to share one of my favorites with you.  I LOVE our Holiday Organizer.  Not only does it come with fantastic pages to help you organize your holidays better, there is a place for everything you have related to your holidays.  Not including your decorations of course.  But there is a place to help you organize your decorations as well in our Holiday Organizer.  I am talking about all those Bingo games, Tom the Turkeys, Halloween Scavenger Hunts, Valentine’s Love Notes, St. Patrick’s day Neighborhood Lucky Leprechaun game, and the list goes on with our products.  Then if you have additional stuff besides that, you have a lot to keep track of.  I found a way to utilize our Holiday Organizer even better by keeping everything together.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  After dividing my organizer into two binders, January through June and July through December, I have taken ordinary photo holders, page protectors and page pockets and turned them into my storage of holiday ideas and games.  I then placed each of my holiday games and ideas in front of the cooresponding month folder for that particular holiday.  It’s the perfect way to keep everything organized and keep it handy in one place.  I love being able to go to that month and see all my fun games and ideas without having to search endlessly for where I put them last.  Even they can get lost or even forgotten in a tote full of decorations.  To give you a better idea, I took some pictures of how I put mine together.  However, make it work for you and your personality.  Feel free to comment about what has worked for you or you are always welcome to ask questions in the comment section and we will answer them for you.